Sting at Paléo - worth the wait

When it was announced at the Spring Paléo press conference that Sting would be playing at the festival this year, it was also revealed that the programmers had been waiting many, many years to get him on the line up. Last night, the third night of Paléo, on a hot evening and in front of a packed crowd, Sting gave a superb performance until the early hours of the morning. The wait was worth it. After the first intro song, he then announced (in perfect French) that he was very happy to be here in Nyon, delighting the crowd (and presumably the programmers) and then went on to sing for nearly two hours, a medley of familiar hits: "Message in a Bottle", "Englishman in New York", "De Do, Do Do, De Da, Da ,Da", "Roxanne", and most fittingly "Heavy Cloud, No Rain".  All songs were crowd pleasers and they reacted accordingly, singing and swaying along to the superstar. Caravan Palace Earlier on in the evening there was even more energetic crowd reaction to "Caravan Palace". This group who play a mixture of scat, swing, jazz, and ragga played here two years ago in the Chapiteau tent to great acclaim (reviewed with photos in this post  here!) and this year they gave an equally fun and frantic performance wowing the crowd dancing under a hot sun and setting the pace for a fun evening.  

Hollie Cook Even earlier on in Thursday's programme, Hollie Cook also got a smaller but appreciative crowd dancing to her band's reggae, dub and ska beat in the Chapiteau tent. It can't be easy performing at 17:45 - a time when many festival goers are just beginning to drift in to the grounds, but she did well, seamlessly drifting from one song to another. Hollie comes with a strong musical pedigree; her father is Paul Cook the the drummer with the Sex Pistols and her mother Jeni used to sing with Culture Club. Evidently growing up with such a musical background has paid off. At times her voice sounded a little like that of Skye Edwards, the former lead singer of Morcheeba but Hollie is her own woman and is one to watch.

Photos below: The Paléo atmosphere